


Baempaieo (Vampires)

by wolfinred (clare_dragonfly)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-12
Updated: 2010-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-20 02:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare_dragonfly/pseuds/wolfinred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team is called to LA's Koreatown to investigate a string of strange stabbings. Finding almost no connection between the victims, they're stumped until Reid realizes that another murder is also connected and slowly puts the pieces together to uncover the killer's frightening delusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baempaieo (Vampires)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is what Google Translate gave me for the Korean word for "vampires"; since the Google Translate offering for the Korean word for "vampire" is something completely different, I am rather skeptical. If anyone can offer any insight as to this I would be grateful (and happy to change the title if necessary).
> 
> Written for [cm_casefiles](http://cm-casefiles.livejournal.com/).

_She rose from dreaming to feel hot breath on her neck. "I'm gonna suck your blood," the vampire whispered, waking her fully. She screamed and flailed for a weapon, any weapon, but his hand cut off her breath and her arms only struck his arms. Then he started to laugh. "You really thought I was a vampire, didn't you, you idiot?" His voice was her brother's again. She started to stand up, but he shoved her back down, her left arm hitting the headboard hard enough to bruise. "You're not going anywhere," he hissed, pulling down his pants._

\--

"Dawson," called Police Chief Delgado. "This looks like one you might be interested in." He tossed the file on Detective Dawson's desk.

Dawson had barely looked through it when he knew what he needed to do. He'd really made this decision on the last one, but there hadn't been enough evidence for him to convince anyone else. Now there was.

"Chief," he said, standing in the door of the chief's office. Delgado looked up, frowning. Dawson continued. "We need to call the FBI in on this one."

\--

They barely spent time on a briefing before they got on the plane. It was obvious to the whole team that this was a high-risk case they needed to get in on right away. Reid sat with large color photographs of each of the victims, looking for patterns. Patterns, of course, besides the fact that they'd all been found on LA streets with multiple strange, blunt-edged stab wounds.

"I think we're looking for an unsub in a psychotic break here," said Morgan. "He doesn't know or care who he's killing. He just needs to kill."

Reid nodded; he couldn't help but agree. There was no pattern to the victims. One was a middle-aged Asian man, one a young Latina woman, and one a young white man. "Garcia," he said, addressing the laptop that was open on the table between him and Morgan, "have you found any connection between the victims?"

"I'm not sure," she replied.

"What do you mean, you're not sure?" said Prentiss, leaning over the back of the chair next to Reid.

"Well, all three of them have credit card records indicating that they were clubbing the night they were killed," she said. "But I haven't found a single club that all three of them went to. Between them they went to sixteen different clubs, and two of them both went to five of those."

"Sixteen clubs and some of them were shared? So they each went to more than five clubs in one night?" Morgan sounded impressed.

"Oh, you can look at Miss Esperanza Sanchez for the numbers. She went to eleven clubs. Kazuhiro Arakaki went to four, and Edward Kelley went to five."

"All of them out for a good time," said Prentiss.

"Well, there goes that theory," said Morgan.

"What theory?" Reid asked.

"Just a thought when Garcia said they went to sixteen clubs total," Morgan said. "I thought maybe serious clubbers were being targeted. But it sounds like Arakaki was just a businessman relaxing on a trip."

Garcia, on the screen, nodded. "He's from New York. Sanchez and Kelley are both California natives."

"Ten minutes to landing," JJ announced.

Hotch walked over to where the rest of them were and began to give out assignments. "Reid and I will head straight for the crime scene. Rossi and Prentiss, you talk to the coroner. Morgan and JJ, work with the local police, see if there's any other information they can give us." Reid nodded and put away the first two pictures, keeping the photo of Edward Kelley to compare to where his body had been found.

\--

"That's a lot of blood," Reid commented almost immediately on reaching the crime scene.

The cop who was showing them around nodded, folding his arms tightly against his chest. He was even younger than Reid, and it was clear this was the worst crime scene he'd yet seen. "At least one of the stab wounds was directly to the heart."

"All of them to the torso?" Hotch asked.

"That's right," said the cop. "All of them to the left side of the chest, actually."

"Blitz attack," Hotch said, walking around, speaking as much for the cop's benefit as for Reid's. "In an alley, in the middle of the night. Was he lying in wait?"

"What for?" Reid asked. He had crouched down and was inspecting the blood pattern. "He wasn't looking for a specific victim, that much is clear. Just waiting for anyone to wander in to the alley?"

"You're right, that doesn't make sense. Followed, or randomly ran into, are more likely."

Reid stood up and the cop's face turned back to him from following Hotch. "He wasn't trying to kill this person in particular?"

Reid shook his head. "The victims don't have anything in common. The killer isn't going after specific people or a specific type, like most serial killers. Hotch, I think we're looking for someone in a psychotic break."

Hotch nodded grimly. "I agree. This is going to be tricky."

"Why?" asked the cop, his voice small.

"We can't predict what he's like," Reid explained. "If we could figure out why he kills who he kills, we could figure out his patterns. But this guy has no patterns... except for the strange weapon."

The cop nodded, staring at the ground--or at least at all the blood.

"But it can be helpful, too," Reid added, trying to be reassuring.

"How so?"

"He's disorganized, sloppy. He'll make a mistake. We just have to hope it's before he kills anyone else."

\--

They returned to the station and briefly shared what they'd found with everyone else. "Oh, boy," said Morgan, rubbing his eyes.

"My thoughts exactly," Reid agreed.

"Are we really sure a psychotic break is the only explanation?" JJ asked. "Couldn't there be another connection that we just can't find?"

"If Garcia can't find a connection, we can be pretty sure there isn't one," said Morgan.

"There are no hesitation marks on any of the bodies," said Prentiss. "An unsub in a psychotic break would explain that--unless these just aren't his first kills."

Rossi turned to Detective Dawson, who'd called them in. "Is there a lot of crime in the area?"

Dawson shook his head. "There are a few gangs, some petty theft, I suspect some of the nightclubs are money laundering operations for the Yakuza, but mostly people here are happy with the money they make hand over fist from the tourists."

"Since the 1992 riots, Koreatown has had a reputation for violence," Reid said, "but actually it's one of the quieter areas of LA."

Dawson gave him a smile. "Exactly."

"You've compared records with other areas of the city, right?"

"Of course," said Dawson. "No other similar crimes. In fact, these three murders were pretty localized."

Reid perked up. "Where?"

As Dawson gave him the locations and he got them marked on the map that JJ and Morgan had put up, Hotch turned to Rossi and Prentiss. "Did the coroner give you anything new?"

"Maybe," said Prentiss. "We mostly talked about the murder weapon. I'd been thinking maybe it was a chisel or something, but the coroner said it was definitely something fairly square with a rough point. He'd done tests, but hadn't found anything to match the wounds."

"And there was one interesting thing," said Rossi. "He found a splinter in one of Edward Kelley's wounds."

"What kind of a splinter?" Hotch asked.

"It's still being tested. But there wasn't any wood at the scene, was there?"

"No," said Reid, rejoining the conversation. "There was plenty of trash around, but it was all paper, plastic, or food waste. It must have been something stuck to the victim's clothing."

"Okay," said Hotch. "JJ, we need a press conference. Give them the profile of an unsub in a psychotic break, and tell them--Reid, you have a geographic profile?"

Reid nodded. "There's about a ten-block radius where he probably lives or works."

"Great," said Hotch. "And the rest of us will work on looking for other crimes."

"But I already searched for similar crimes," said Dawson, puzzled.

Hotch nodded. "I know, but we might see something you didn't. It's possible this unsub has caused disturbances or possibly tried to kill before. We'll know what we're looking for when we see it."

Dawson's brow stayed furrowed for a moment, then he shrugged. "Well, I won't pretend to understand it, but as long as it will help you catch this guy, I'm in favor of it. Let me go get you those files."

"I'll go with you," Morgan said.

Dawson gave a short nod. "Thanks."

\--

Two hours later, they were all still looking through the files. JJ walked in and sat down with a sigh, rubbing her eyes. "How'd the press conference go?" Hotch asked without looking up.

"Long," she responded. "The only places where I've seen people more suspicious of the FBI are small towns. And they had a lot of questions we can't answer yet. Which, of course, they didn't want to accept as an answer." She glanced over at the phones. "The only thing we can do now is hope someone calls in with a tip."

"And look through these files," said Prentiss. She slid a small stack over to JJ. "Here you go. Join in the fun."

"Thanks," said JJ, with admirable aplomb--she didn't roll her eyes at Prentiss.

Dawson, this unsolved murder--it isn't being investigated?" Reid asked, looking up from the file he held.

Dawson looked over at him, his lips pursed. "What unsolved murder is that?"

"The one where the man was beheaded in his own home." Both Rossi and Hotch looked up at that.

"Oh." Dawson sighed. "We looked into that, but it's pretty clear that the murder was gang-related--the victim had been in and out of prison, and the family didn't seem all that surprised that he was dead. Other than the blood all over the place, of course. His little sister is pretty traumatized, actually--she found the body."

Prentiss winced. "That would traumatize anybody."

Dawson nodded grimly. "Anyway, like I said, we looked into it, but these gangs are awfully hard to trace. There really wasn't any evidence on the scene. The murder weapon belonged to the family. So it's officially a cold case unless we come upon some more evidence or get a gang member who knows something into custody."

"Is beheading a common way for gangs to get rid of their problems around here?" Rossi asked, his voice dripping skepticism.

Dawson shrugged. "I've never seen it before. But I've seen all kinds of things. Once we had a guy's lips sewn shut. That one," he added, pointedly to Rossi, "we did catch the guy who did it, and he was in a gang. Anyway, why do you ask, Dr. Reid?"

"It's so unusual, I wondered if you had another serial killer on your hands. But if it's only the one case, that's unlikely."

Dawson put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. "I hope not. One is bad enough. I just want to catch the guy and forget about it."

"Well, that's why we're here," said Hotch.

\--

"Think you can tone down the flirting this time?" Prentiss asked.

Morgan just grinned at her. "Maybe this time it'll be your turn."

Emily rolled her eyes. "After this one, we'll meet up with Hotch and Reid. Maybe they'll have had more luck."

They showed their IDs to the bouncer, then made their way through the crowd. The club was noisy, intermittently lit, and very crowded. There wasn't much hope that this bartender knew anything either. Emily found herself hoping that the bartender would be a guy just to switch up the monotony of the evening.

It was not her lucky evening. The bartender who greeted them was a twenty-something Asian woman whose breasts couldn't possibly be real. She flashed them--well, to be fair, it was directed at Morgan--a bright white smile. "What can I get you?"

Her smile faded as they displayed their badges. Emily gave the dates of Sanchez's and Arakaki's murders, and she confirmed that she'd been there. Morgan set the pictures down on the bar. "Do you recognize either of these people?"

Biting her lip, she started to shake her head, then stopped. She put her finger on the picture of Arakaki. "I think I remember him. He was pretty drunk. All by himself, too."

Emily checked her notes. This had been Arakaki's last stop. That made sense, then. "Do you remember anything in particular about him?"

"Yeah, he flirted with a lot of girls, but Suji actually talked to him. She works, um, she's one of the waitresses."

Emily and Morgan exchanged a look. If this wasn't a lead, she didn't know what was. "Can we talk to her?" Morgan asked.

The bartender nodded quickly. "Just a sec." She leaned back and called "Suji!" down the way.

A few moments later, a younger Asian woman, wearing heavy jade earrings and a huge cross pendant, approached. "What's up?"

The bartender gestured nervously at the two of them. "FBI. They want to talk to you."

Suji looked at them and her eyes widened. "I, uh..." She looked around wildly, but the bartender had managed to make herself scarce. Reluctantly, she approached the bar. "Did I do something wrong?" she asked in a small voice.

Morgan shook his head quickly. "Don't you worry your pretty little head," he said in a warm voice that always made women smile. It barely worked on Suji, but it did the trick. Emily resisted the urge to sigh. He wasn't flirting just for the fun, but to draw this woman out of her shell. "We just wanted to know if you remember this man," Morgan continued, propping up the picture of Arakaki.

Suji's smile immediately faded, and she recoiled, her eyes widening even further--which Emily wouldn't have guessed was possible. She nodded quickly.

"I guess you two didn't get along too well," Morgan said sympathetically.

The tiny smile returned. "Oh, he was just really drunk and being a pervert. He wouldn't stop flirting with me, and he was definitely pissing off some of the patrons. I told him I would meet him when my shift was done so he would get off everyone's back."

"But you didn't really meet him?" Morgan asked.

"No, I went a different way."

"That was nice of you," Emily said, honestly impressed.

Suji's smile widened slightly. "I like my job. I don't want people acting like idiots around here."

Emily nodded. "Do you recognize this woman?" She held up the picture of Sanchez.

Suji peered at it, then shook her head. "I thought I did, but she just looks like a lot of people who come to the club."

"All right, thanks for your time," said Morgan. He held out his card. "If you remember anything else you might want to tell us, please give us a call." He raised one eyebrow. "My personal number's on the back."

Suji giggled slightly, took the card, and walked away, tucking the card into her bra.

Emily shook her head at Morgan as soon as they were out of the bar and could hear each other. "Giving her your number was not necessary."

"What? I got her to let down her guard."

Emily sighed. "Let's go meet Hotch and Reid." She walked faster.

\--

Back at the BAU on the third day of the case, they were looking through files again, trying to find some connection. The conversations of the night before had yielded little; no one remembered anyone matching the profile of a psychotic break, and while they suspected that Esperanza Sanchez and Kazuhiro Arakaki might have pissed someone off by flirting with his wife, the same could not be determined of Edward Kelley. Reid couldn't seem to make any connections in his brain. He picked up the unsolved murder file he'd been looking at earlier and paged through it again. The images of the grinning severed head and the blood splattered nearly to the ceiling barely disturbed him.

JJ looked over his shoulder. "Are you looking at that file again? What's up with that, Spence?"

Reid sighed and leaned back in his chair, setting the file back down on the table. "I don't know," he said. "There's just something about the unsolved beheading that's bugging me."

"Well, you've got a big brain," Hotch said. "The thoughts might need a little time to connect up. Why don't you go talk to the family? That might trigger something. Take Prentiss with you."

Reid nodded. "It's worth a try." He stood up and looked at Prentiss, who had already stood and grabbed her jacket.

She grinned at him. "I'm sick of paperwork. Let's go."

They didn't take long to get to the home of the beheading victim. It was clearly a poor neighborhood, the streets dirty, laundry hanging between buildings, and teenagers hanging out with bottles and mean looks. They found the apartment and knocked on the door. It was opened by a middle-aged Asian woman whose head barely came up to the bottom of Reid's ribcage. She scolded at them in a language he didn't know. He looked at Emily. She shook her head and spoke in English to the woman. "Are you Heung Park?"

The woman continued spoke again in the foreign language--Korean, most likely--staring at Reid and Prentiss like they were idiots for not responding. After a few minutes, a younger woman's voice could clearly be heard. As she approached, she switched to a language Reid could at least understand. "Mamá, estás loca. Ve a la cocina." Scolding her daughter, the older woman turned and walked away, and the younger woman, who was taller, straightened up. Then her eyes widened. Next to him, he could sense Emily stiffen in surprise.

"Suji Park?" Emily asked cautiously. Reid looked at her sharply. How did she know who this young woman was?

The girl nodded. "You have more questions for me?" She shot Reid a curious look, but turned back to Prentiss.

"We do, actually. May we come in?"

Suji nodded repeatedly, backing away to let them in. "Do you want some tea? Kimchi? Mama makes excellent kimchi."

Reid tried not to laugh. "No, thank you." He and Emily sat down on a couch, while Suji moved nervously about, removing some dishes from the coffee table and resettling the seat cushion on a wooden chair before sitting down herself.

"I don't remember anything else about those people," she said, staring at Emily. The pieces fell into place for Reid. She must have been the woman Morgan and Prentiss had talked to at one of the clubs last night. He should have brought Morgan with him.

"That's not what we're here about," Emily responded. "We're here about the death of Jeong Park. He was your brother?"

Suji's hands were clasped in her lap, so tightly that her knuckles were white. She wore jade bracelets on both wrists--one with large round beads that overwhelmed her thin build, one with several carved talismans. "Yes, he was."

"I understand this must be difficult for you, but we haven't caught his killer yet and we're trying another tactic. You're the one who found his body, correct?"

"That's right," Suji whispered. "I come home from work, and the blood..."

Reid cleared his throat awkwardly. "You don't have to tell us any more about that. We got all that from the police file. What I want to know is, who do you think killed him?"

Suji looked up at him, her eyes wide. "Me?" Reid nodded. Suji was silent for a moment, then said, "I don't know. He was in a bad crowd. Just came home from jail. Maybe he made someone angry."

"And the sword. It belonged to your family?"

"It was my papa's. He died a few months ago. While Jeong was in jail." Her lips tightened. That might have been in response to a fresh torrent of shouting in Korean from the kitchen. Reid caught the brother's name in it. Evidently the mother was not happy about the mention of his name. Suji shouted back at her, then turned back to Reid and Prentiss, looking more composed.

"Who else lives here?" Reid asked.

"Now it's just me, mama, and my little sister. She's at school right now. Do you want to talk to her too?"

"No, that's all right. Does anyone else have a key to the apartment?"

"I haven't given anybody a key. Jeong might have, though. I don't know."

Reid nodded. Of course, the building manager would, and most likely anyone who came in to do work on the apartments. Of course, the police had investigated all those people, but something was starting to take shape in Reid's brain now. "All right. Thank you. If you think of anything else that might be helpful, please call us. You have Agent Morgan's card."

That finally got a little smile out of Suji. "I will."

Emily looked at him as they walked down the stairs of the apartment building. "Reid, are you thinking our same unsub killed this guy?"

"I don't know," he said. "It doesn't seem to make sense, does it? Someone in a psychotic break wouldn't sneak into someone's apartment and kill him with his own weapon. It could have been someone the brother invited over..."

Emily nodded, then looked back at the apartment. "Poor girl. Losing her father and brother within a few months of each other, and I bet she's the only one supporting the family now. No wonder she cares so much about her job."

"And doesn't like to smile," Reid agreed.

\--

"So you think she's the unsub?" Morgan asked.

"What? No," said Reid, looking shocked.

"She does have a connection to at least one victim," Morgan pointed out. "One of the others was also at the club where she works, and she definitely has some recent trauma."

"I agree with Reid," said Prentiss. "Suji isn't tiny, but she's very slim. I just don't think she has the arm strength to cause those stab wounds."

Morgan walked over to Prentiss and grabbed her wrist. He could more than encircle it with his thumb and forefinger. "She's not much slimmer than you. And *you* could cause those stab wounds."

"All right, all right," she said, wrenching her arm away. "But I still don't think she did it."

"Okay," said Morgan, shrugging. "Let's just keep our options open."

"I think we should pursue the beheading angle," said Reid. "Detective Dawson, do you know what gangs Jeong Park might have been involved with?"

"You think it might be gang activity after all?" Dawson asked.

"I think the unsub might be a gang member," Reid clarified. "These recent killings are definitely not gang activity. In fact, if we could get in touch with members of the unsub's gangs, they'd probably tell us all about his psychotic behavior--maybe they've even kicked him out of the group."

"We have seen something like that before," Hotch said.

Dawson nodded slowly. "Got it. Unfortunately, I don't know who, if anyone, he might be mixed up with."

Morgan grinned and held up his cell phone. "I got this." He dialed Garcia's number. "Hey, baby girl."

"My frosted chocolate cake! I was wondering when you would ever call for me."

Morgan was about to tell her what to look for, but her greeting sidetracked him. "Frosted?" Prentiss and JJ both smirked; he couldn't know what they were imagining was going on on the other end of the line.

"I'd like to lick the frosting off of you."

He could only laugh. Thank God he didn't have her on speaker. "Some other time, beautiful. I've got a name for you."

"Speak." He could practically hear her hands hovering over her keyboard.

"Jeong Park. Get me whatever you can on his friends and associates."

There was typing, then silence for a moment. "Not much, I'm afraid. He's been arrested a few times, but usually alone. There's some juvenile records--unsealing... that's just shoplifting and marijuana possession. This last time he was in jail for armed robbery. Want his partner's name?"

"Please, and whatever you got on the partner, too."

"Got it. Name's John Hermosillo." More furious typing, then, "Crap."

"What is it?"

"Hermosillo's an immigrant. I can't get much on him... unless... oh, there is that new program..."

"So what's the problem?" Morgan had never before heard Penelope Garcia even the slightest bit distressed about a new computer program.

"Let me talk to Hotch, please, sugar."

Morgan raised his eyebrows, surprised. "Sure thing." He handed the phone to Hotch.

"Garcia?" All eyes were on Hotch as she explained the situation--whatever it was--to him. Of course, there was no guessing by Hotch's expression what was going on. She could be offering to let him test her new edible underwear and he wouldn't so much as twitch.

Finally, he said, "Do it. Just don't get caught." He hung up the phone and handed it to Morgan. Then he looked around at everyone still staring at him. "Get back to work, guys. This case isn't going to solve itself."

Morgan got back to work.

\--

An hour later, Garcia called back. "I've got your info on this kid. And he is a kid--according to the records I could find, he's nineteen."

"Gang connections?" Morgan asked.

"Looks like it." She rattled off a few names, which he jotted down. "The man himself is still in jail for that armed robbery."

"Thanks, Garcia. What was it about that program that you had to talk to Hotch about?"

"Can't tell you, sugar. Plausible deniability." She hung up.

Morgan passed the information on to Dawson. He nodded. "We talked to Hermosillo after Park was killed, but he couldn't give us anything. Or wouldn't, anyway."

"Let me talk to him," said Hotch. "With the possibility of his death being connected to our psychotic, we might be able to get more information out of him."

"No problem," said Dawson. "I'll go with you." They didn't waste any time.

In the relative quiet after Hotch and Dawson had left, JJ said, "Guys, do you realize that it's Halloween? I'm going to have to call Will and tell him he'd better take Henry trick-or-treating by himself. I'll never make it back in time even if we catch the unsub now."

Reid looked up from the map he was poring over in surprise. "Really?"

Prentiss groaned. "I was supposed to go to a party tonight. Oh well. Maybe next year?"

"The streets are going to be crowded tonight," said Rossi.

Morgan nodded in agreement. "Maybe we should tell them to put even more cops on the streets."

"Dawson might not like that," said Prentiss.

Morgan shrugged. "It's his precinct. He knows what Halloween is like here. He'll do whatever he thinks is best."

Morgan's phone rang again, surprising him. It was Garcia once more. With the local cop and their stoic boss out of the room, he felt safe putting her on speaker. "Hey, baby girl. Say hi to the room."

"Hi, room," she said, sounding strained.

Prentiss leaned over the phone. "What's wrong, PG?"

"So I got bored and I decided to look at the rest of Jeong Park's family," Garcia said.

"Good thinking," said JJ.

"Yeah. Well. His little sister, Suji?"

"What about her?" Prentiss asked quickly.

"She went to the hospital a bunch of times from when she was eight to when she was like fifteen. The family switched up the hospitals, so they never caught on, but I'm pretty sure she was being abused. Possibly sexually."

There was a silence, then Prentiss asked, "What about the other little sister?"

"No, she seems fine. Maybe because the abuser had Suji."

"Good work, Garcia," Morgan told her. He looked around at the others. "Could that be a pattern we're missing?"

"Garcia," Reid said, "Have you looked at the families of the other three victims?"

"Other victims?" She sounded about to panic.

"I'm operating under a theory that Jeong was killed by the same unsub who did the stabbings we're here to investigate."

"Oh. Okay. I thought you were giving me more for a second. Let me see. Arakaki's family, except for his wife, is all in Japan, so I haven't looked at them, but I could. Sanchez is an only child an her parents are retired in Florida. Kelley has a little brother. You want me to look into him?"

"Him, Arakaki's family, and any cousins or childhood friends Sanchez might have," said Rossi. "I think we're on to something here. We might have been looking at the wrong angle all this time."

"Go be brilliant," Morgan told Garcia.

She laughed, sounding rather calmer than she had a few minutes ago. "You know I always am."

Moments after she'd hung up, there was a knock and a lanky young cop poked his head in. "The coroner gave me some information. He said you'd want to see it."

Reid, who was already standing, took the paper the cop had. "Thanks." The cop nodded and vanished. Reid glanced at the paper. "It's the results on the splinter from Edward Kelley's clothing. It's northern red oak."

"Is that common in this area?" Prentiss asked.

Reid shook his head. "It doesn't grow this far south, but it's easy enough to get your hands on. I don't know how a splinter of it would get on clothing, though--it's most commonly used to make furniture, which doesn't often splinter." He sighed and tossed the paper onto the table. "Weird, but probably a dead end."

"Let's hope Dawson and Hotch are having more luck," said Rossi.

\--

They weren't. Hermosillo was repeatedly denying that he knew anything about Park's death. Finally Hotch gave up. He couldn't see any signs that the kid was lying. He was too scared. He knew he was in the country illegally, and he was afraid that the cops questioning him knew, too. Hotch took the list of names Garcia had found and tossed it down in front of Hermosillo. "Fine," he said. "Do any of these people know anything about Park's death?"

Hermosillo scanned the list, then shook his head. "I don't know, man. I ain't talked to any of them since I got in here. They don't want nothing to do with me until I'm a free man again. But Jeong ain't done nothing to them either. Don't know why anybody would kill him."

"Do they know him?" Hotch asked.

Hermosillo pointed to two names. "They do. Don't think the others do."

"All right. Can you think of anyone you know who might have been acting erratically recently? They might fly into a rage with little provocation, or go missing when you expect to see them."

Hermosillo laughed doubtfully. "I know a lot of people who get real pissed sometimes, but usually somebody's done something to get them mad."

"This person would probably have changed fairly recently."

"Like I told you, man, I ain't talked to nobody," Hermosillo said with a shrug. "I wouldn't know."

"All right." Hotch stood up. "Thank you for your time."

Dawson looked at him as they left. "On to the other names on the list?"

Hotch nodded. "On to the rest."

\--

Reid was awakened by an unusually pleasant dream involving Lila Archer and a swimming pool behind a new house by a pounding noise. At first, his brain couldn't process it; he just acknowledged it as something trying to wake him up and rolled over, pressing the pillow over his ears. But it continued, and then stopped, followed by Morgan's muffled voice: "Get up, Reid! We got a crime scene to investigate!"

At least Reid thought that was what he said, but it was enough to propel him out of bed and to the door, attempting to smooth down his hair as he did. He opened the door. "What's going on?"

"New murder," said Morgan, scowly and unshaven. "Get up, get dressed, we're going over there. JJ is getting everybody coffee."

Reid nodded to show he'd understood and shut the door a little harder than he'd intended in Morgan's face. Then he turned the light on--it was early enough that the only hint of light was from a streetlamp outside--and blinked around looking for his clothes.

Once JJ had handed him a coffee and they were all in the SUVs on the way to the crime scene, he felt alert enough to finally ask, "So what's going on?" He squinted at the dashboard clock. It was just after five AM.

"Another body," she said. "Found in an alley in the nightclub area, like the others, but it looks like you were right--this one was beheaded."

Reid was still too tired, and anyway it was too upsetting to find another victim, to feel any sense of pride that his guess that the death of Jeong Park was connected to the stabbings was correct. "What was the weapon?"

"Don't know yet. We don't know much at all yet, actually. But it's best if we can get there as quickly as possible so no evidence is lost."

"Yeah," he agreed. He glanced over at JJ. It was impressive how alert she managed to be at this hour. Of course, she was the first awake and had probably drunk the most coffee, which was why she was driving. Mindful of that, Reid slurped down more of his own coffee. He needed his brain working at full capacity by the time they reached the crime scene.

"What do we know about this victim?" Hotch asked the cops on scene without preamble.

"ID says he's Nicholas Juarez," the cop said, acknowledging the need for urgency. "He was carrying a lot of cash but nothing's missing."

"And it's correct that he was beheaded?"

"Well, not quite," said the other cop, with a glance back and a grimace. "Whatever the weapon was, it didn't go all the way through the spine, so it's just a huge wound in the neck."

Prentiss snorted. "He's Nearly Headless Nick!" Everyone turned to look at her, and she wrestled her features into a more sober expression, though laughter still lingered in the edges of her mouth. "Sorry. It's too early in the morning for this. Let's see that body."

Reid had seen some bad cases, but even the BAU team had to admit that this one was pretty disgusting. They all looked over it silently for a few minutes, walking carefully to keep from getting too much blood on their shoes, before Reid realized something. "There's so much blood here. The unsub had to get quite a bit on his clothes."

"Last night was Halloween," Morgan pointed out. "Nobody would look twice at someone covered in blood."

"True." Reid turned to the cops. "Do you know what time the murder occurred?"

One of the cops checked his notes. "Between two and three AM."

"All the other murders were the same," he muttered. "That's when most clubs close, isn't it?" Receiving nods in reply, he continued. "The unsub probably had time to get home and change his clothes before anyone saw the blood. But would he have the presence of mind to do that?"

"If not, I think we would have caught him by now," said Prentiss, who had gulped down the rest of her coffee and seemed somewhat calmer. "Even if no one had seen the blood, a typical psychotic has dissociative and amnesiac episodes. He would have seen the blood on his clothes and freaked out."

"Ugh." He rubbed his eyes, being careful not to spill his coffee as he did. "You're right. Another dead end."

"Don't worry about it, kid," said Morgan, putting a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "It's something. We'll get this."

"We will," agreed Rossi. "If we can keep the city from going into a panic."

"We've seen all we need to see here," Hotch told the cops. "Have the medical team pack it up."

\--

 _The vampire wanted to take her blood. She could tell, even if it was doing a good job of pretending to be human. It didn't notice that she was different, that she was filthy and shouldn't be approached, like the other humans did. But she could pretend to be innocent. What was a good vampire hunter who couldn't convince them she wasn't? Otherwise they would never allow her to come close. Come close, and destroy the vampire threat once and for all._

\--

After several more hours of interviews and press conferences, it was finally time to call Garcia. Morgan knew what time she came into work and didn't waste a moment. She answered rather breathlessly. "I haven't even sat down yet."

"You get no sympathy from me," he said, rubbing at the stubble he hadn't had time to get rid of yet. The shadow suited him, but he didn't entertain the idea of growing it out for more than a minute. "We've all been up since before five."

"Oh, ouch," she said, all sympathy. "Another victim?"

"You guessed it. Please be looking up Nicholas Juarez for us."

"No problem, sugar." He could hear beeps and clicks in the background. "But I've got to wait for my magic to warm up first. I'll call you back, okay?"

"I'll be waiting." He hung up.

Immediately, Hotch said to him, "The coroner wants to talk to us. You're not too busy right now and Reid, the beheading angle is yours, so can you be the ones to go down?"

"Let's go," said Reid, nodding.

Morgan looked at his phone and handed it to Hotch. "You hang onto this in case Garcia calls back. There's no reception down there." Hotch nodded.

"Agent Morgan, good to see you again," the coroner greeted them when they arrived.

"You too," said Morgan. "This is Dr. Reid." Reid gave his customary don't-touch-me wave.

"Glad you had time to make it down here."

"Have you identified the murder weapon?" Morgan asked, following the coroner to where the body lay on a table. It was much less gruesome without all the blood splattered around, though still unpleasant to look at, with the gaping wound in its neck.

He nodded. "To an extent. It's the same style of sword as was used in the Jeong Park killing." At Morgan's look of surprise, he grinned. "The whole precinct has been paying attention to what you're paying attention to. I reviewed that case yesterday. Now I'm glad I did."

"Is the weapon unusual?" Reid, all business, asked.

"Unfortunately, no. It's the same kind of mostly-decorative katana that is sold all around this neighborhood. The tourists love them, and most of the locals do too. And since this one appears to be in good shape, with no unusual markings on the blade, there's no way to identify the specific weapon. It could be the exact same one that was used to kill Park, but it could be a totally different one."

"We can look at a list of katana suppliers," said Morgan.

The coroner shrugged. "I don't think that would be a good use of your time, but I'm not the FBI investigator."

"We'll see," Morgan said. He knew Garcia would be able to get them much more useful information than just a list of katana suppliers. "Is that all you wanted to tell us?"

"No, I could have just sent a memo on that. There's something else very strange, something that wasn't in the Park murder either." He gestured at the wound. "Would either of you like to take a sniff?"

Morgan and Reid exchanged a look. Morgan had to admit that this was a very unusual manifestation of the coroners' sick sense of humor (which he'd encountered before). Then, to his surprise, Reid shrugged and leaned in. Morgan was definitely impressed. He took a step backward anyway.

Reid straightened up, his eyes wide with surprise. "Garlic?"

"That's right," said the coroner with a satisfied smile. "It looks like garlic was rubbed on the blade and got in the wound."

"That's..." Morgan shook his head. "That's definitely one of the more unusual things we've encountered."

"Shit," said Reid. Morgan, unused to hearing his young colleague swear, just stared at him. Reid turned to him and continued. "This unsub thinks he's killing vampires."

\--

Back in the room the BAU team was using, Reid explained how he'd come up with his theory. "With only two points of comparison, and one of them ambiguous, I couldn't be sure. But now I am. Vampire lore is quite varied, but in the US it's become focused on a few basic things. Beheading and staking through the heart are two of the widely accepted ways to combat vampires. Garlic is also said to be effective against them. Two victims have been beheaded, and three were stabbed in the heart. A splinter of wood was found in one victim's wounds, indicating that an unfinished piece of wood was used to stab."

His expectant look was only received with silence for a moment. JJ said, "Reid..."

"No, think about it!" he insisted, gesturing with his big hands. "What possible other reason could there be for someone to coat the blade of a katana with garlic? It's not something you use to cook dinner with. It's for decoration, or maybe for self-defense."

"Vampires?" said Prentiss, still skeptical.

He sighed and pushed his hair out of his face. "I'm not saying there really are vampires. I'm just saying the unsub thinks there are."

Rossi, his arms crossed, was nodding. "Norman Hill thought his family was still around. Samantha Malcolm thought her kidnap victims were her dolls."

"Randall Garner thought his daughter was the Holy Grail," Hotch agreed. "Eddie Mays thought Wally Brisbane was an angel."

"And Tobias Hankel thought his father and an angel were forcing him to do the will of God," Reid finished. "Why shouldn't an unsub convince himself he's going after vampires?"

JJ sighed. "So how do we find someone who thinks he's doing the world a favor by killing vampires?"

"We hit the clubs again," said Hotch. "Tell them... well, tell them just that."

"No," said Prentiss.

Everyone turned to look at her. "No?" Reid asked.

Prentiss shook her head. "We don't have to. I know who we're looking for."

\--

Prentiss knocked on the door. This time she had Morgan with her, but the rest of the team (minus JJ, who was waiting outside) and what seemed like half of the Los Angeles cops were ranged throughout the building, some just down the hall and some down the stairs.

The door was opened by Mrs. Park, who once again squinted and spoke angry Korean--but this time she squinted angrily at Prentiss, obviously recognizing her. Once again, Suji followed her and turned to speak to the investigators. She stepped back when she saw Prentiss, but smiled tentatively at Morgan. He grinned back at her. "Hi again. Mind if we come in?"

"Oh--yes, please do," she said, holding the door for them. "Have you found out anything about my brother?"

"We think so," said Morgan, as Prentiss wandered into the apartment's small hallway. There were three katanas displayed on the wall there, with different decorations and coloring on the sheaths and handles.

"Is this where your brother was killed?" she asked casually.

"Yes," whispered Suji. "This is--where I found him."

Prentiss nodded. Morgan said, "I hear your mother makes really great kimchi."

"She does," said Suji. "Would you like to try some?"

"Please." Suji led Morgan back out to the living room, which had, of course, been the plan. Prentiss quietly pulled a plastic bag out of her pocket and used it to hold the handle of the topmost katana. She slid it out of the sheath as silently as she could. It was shiny, sharp, and clean. She could hear the clinking of dishes from the living room as she pulled out the second. Clean. Then she pulled out the third.

There was no way to carry it that wouldn't look threatening. She took down both sword and sheath and carried them, point down, into the living room. Suji looked at her, then jumped up with a shriek. Morgan jumped up too. "Suji Park." She turned to him, and he held out his handcuffs. "You're under arrest for the murders of Jeong Park, Esperanza Sanchez, Kazuhiro Arakaki, Edward Kelley, and Nicholas Juarez. You have the right to remain silent."

Suji protested over the sound of Morgan reading her her rights and clasping the handcuffs. "But--I haven't done anything wrong! Mama! Tell them!"

Mrs. Park ran out of the kitchen and screamed. "I know this is difficult," Prentiss told her in Spanish, having guessed from before that she spoke it well. "But if you'll come down to the precinct with us, we'll explain everything."

Hotch and Rossi had joined them by then, and helped Morgan lead the two shocked women away. Someone would be picking up the sister from her high school. Prentiss handed over the katana and sheath to a CSI with large evidence bags. Another CSI then followed her and Reid into the bedrooms, where they quickly identified Suji's and began searching for more evidence.

As they were packing her blood-soaked clothes--including a Halloween costume--into evidence bags, Reid asked, "How did you figure it out?"

"A few things," she said. "She was always wearing that cross necklace. She seemed scared most of the time. But mostly it was her brother. It seemed unlikely that someone who didn't live here could have killed him like that and gotten away without notice, and we know she was abused. I'm thinking her brother was her abuser, and her father used to protect her, but when he died she was alone. All that plus the stress of having to provide for her mother and little sister... and Arakaki was flirting with her at the club where she worked. It was probably freaking her out."

Reid shook his head. "That poor woman."

Emily nodded in agreement. "It's always the worst when the killer is a victim too."


End file.
